The Metropolitan Police Force has agreed to an independent review of the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation, following calls from Stephen’s mother, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, to reopen the dormant inquiry. The Met issued an apology to Baroness Lawrence earlier for breaking a promise to answer questions arising from a BBC investigation. The Met acknowledged her concerns and said that an external agency would “review our approach.” The open-ended review could lead to the case being reopened.
Baroness Lawrence used a BBC interview to call on the Met to pursue the killers, saying that the force could do more to bring them to justice. Stephen was 18 years old when he was fatally stabbed by a group of young white men in a racist attack in south London’s Eltham area on 22 April 1993. The inadequate investigation that followed was a landmark moment in the struggle against institutional racism in policing in the UK. The Macpherson Report of 1999 criticised the early failures of the investigation, branding the Met as institutionally racist.
Following the botched investigation, only two of Stephen’s killers have been convicted. Gary Dobson and David Norris were two of the five primary suspects and were convicted some years after the murder. In 2020, the Met suspended investigations into the murder, saying that it had exhausted every possible lead. Last year, a BBC investigation publicly identified a sixth suspect, Matthew White, who passed away in 2021 aged 50. Many police shortcomings, including inadequate investigation of White, were revealed.
The review of the investigation by an external force resulted from a “frank conversation” between the Met Commissioner and the London Mayor, after which, Mayor Sadiq Khan announced that the Commissioner would request another police force to “evaluate the evaluation” of the Met police. The new agency will need to evaluate vast quantities of evidence to determine whether there is still a viable possibility of prosecuting anyone. A person close to the London Mayor’s office stated that the new force must earn the confidence of the Lawrence family
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